General Discussion

It's very common that we switch political parties every 4 or 8 years. It's less common that we have a democrat, followed by a different democrat, followed by a different democrat.

When people are unhappy with their own circumstances, they blame whoever is in charge at the time. Sometimes that's fair, sometimes it's not. Economics are complex and some voters don't watch enough unbiased news to understand the difference between Trump destroying the country and hurting low income and middle class Americans, and Biden and Obama inheriting economies that were in terrible shape and rescuing and rebuilding them, which took time.

Hillary Clinton had to run following Obama.

Kamala Harris had to run following Biden.

This is one reason why I don't necessarily discount the idea that we COULD actually run a female presidential candidate in 2028, or a gay presidential candidate, and be successful. I don't think their losses were entirely about how they were perceived as candidates (we all know they were great candidates) and more about people were not happy with the economy, and pinned that on the current president, and they got blamed for it. Right now, the country is REALLY unhappy, and we're seeing that benefit democratic candidates in a major way. Zohran Mamdami, who is a Muslim and not white, just won in NYC, despite all the nastiness republicans could throw at him, along with some cold shouldering from democrats. And he's a progressive!

So I think there were lots of factors that led to them not winning (including misogyny and racism) but I also think what year you run, and the conditions you run in (who was president before you and are they currently destroying the country so you have a really favorable environment to run in), has a big factor.